According to Hubspot, marketing automation implementation can lead to a 14.5% increase in sales productivity and a 12.2% reduction in marketing overhead. In addition, marketing automation can assist with increasing your sales leads and boosting your ROI. Sounds great for your business, right?
The worldwide market for marketing automation solutions is anticipated to almost triple to $19.7 billion in 2026 from an estimated $6.9 billion in 2020. With the popularity of marketing automation increasing, it’s important to know how this impacts your brand, and how you can leverage your marketing automation tools for optimized networking.
Leverage Your Marketing Automation Tools—4 Ways to Network Effectively
It’s no surprise, but networking in business allows you to be more noticeable and provides an avenue to exchange ideas. The value of optimized networking can’t be overstated.
Successfully implementing marketing automation processes before attending events ensures that you nurture your network before the event even begins. With these tools in place, you can focus on what really matters: making genuine connections and standing out in the crowd. With our tried-and-true strategies, you can leverage your marketing automation tools for networking:
Why Are Marketing Automation Tools Used?
Ready to put your data to work? With effective marketing automation tools, you can streamline your sales and marketing workflows, generating more leads and boosting customer engagement. Marketing automation tools can help address marketing and administrative challenges– no matter how big or small. For example, we help our clients utilize automation tools for lead nurturing and campaign management, workflow automation, social media, and administrative assistance, to name a few.
If you want to fully optimize your networking strategy, there are a number of steps to be taken prior to the event. Utilizing marketing automation tools for networking opportunities allows you to:
- Save Time: Emails, campaigns, and other critical communication can be scheduled ahead of the event, saving plenty of time and effort for actually building meaningful relationships.
- Include Personalization: You have the ability to tailor unique, personal messages that amplify your intentions and communicate sincerely.
- Increase Productivity: Instead of spending time doing repetitive tasks that can be easily automated within your marketing platform, you have more time for sales, other projects, and any other priorities that boost your productivity.
Identify Your Tools
It should be no surprise that technology and marketing automation have a unique relationship. 56% of businesses currently use the technology, and that number of users continues to grow rapidly. Before starting your marketing automation campaign, identify your business goals and the tools needed to make these goals come to fruition. Keep in mind, the marketing automation tools you use should align with your campaign goals. Additionally, you should have the proper infrastructure to support the functionality of the tools you choose. When selecting your marketing automation tools, here are the most important factors to consider:- What is your ultimate goal for using marketing automation?
- Do you currently have a marketing automation tool? If so, do you want to transition to a new platform or optimize your current platform?
- What is the state of your data?
- Is the platform compatible with any current technologies, integrations, and platforms your business relies on?
- Does it fit within your budget?
- How many team members are using your automation tool and how are each using it?
- Do you have a defined process or procedural documentation for using your automation tool?
- What level of analytics and reporting are you looking for?
- Is the platform compatible with your brand’s communication style?
- Is there comprehensive support available?
- Are there any deadlines, initiatives, or contract dates to consider?
- Are there any limitations that will affect your workflows?
If making your networking process more efficient is your aim, your tools should suit what needs to be done to connect with contacts before and after the event. As Salesforce implementation experts and Pardot specialists, we’ve worked with a variety of clients across various industries on automation assessments, implementations, and optimizations across many platforms and integrations, including:
There are many platforms to choose from, so defining your needs clearly is crucial to selecting and using the right marketing automation platform for your business.
Create A Campaign Brief
When creating a campaign to support your networking efforts, consider crafting a campaign brief to accompany it. A campaign brief is the foundation of your campaign—consider it your marketing automation manual! In the same sense, a campaign brief will make sure every part of the campaign is on target. We suggest starting your brief by identifying the issue you’re trying to solve—this is one of the keys to success. In this instance, you’d ask yourself what you want to achieve from upcoming networking opportunities.
We suggest including as much relevant information in your campaign brief as possible, such as
- Campaign name
- Campaign goals
- Launch date and timeline
- Actionable items required to support the campaign
- Drafting emails
- Creating supplementary content
- Follow-up communication
Creating a thorough and intentional campaign brief will keep you organized, and align your messaging with your goals.
Establish Communication
A vital part of marketing automation is communication and being accessible to your target audience. There are many ways to establish communication through networking while utilizing marketing automation. Here are a few ways to set yourself up for smooth networking success:
- Create an email campaign: Draft and automatically send 2-3 drip emails to your contacts inviting them to connect with you at the networking event. Pay attention to your timeline, as you want to give your recipients plenty of time to respond leading up to the event. Want some tips? We’ve put together a cheat sheet on the best email marketing practices.
- Provide a link to your calendar booking and availability: This is a great way to express your desire for connecting and shows your interest in starting a conversation while limiting the amount of work your contacts have to complete to make plans with you. Be sure to include this in all of your correspondence.
- Utilize digital business cards: Utilizing a digital business card app allows for a quick and easy exchange of information as you connect with new contacts at the event. We recommend adding relevant links to your digital business card, like a supplemental landing page.
It’s no hassle to implement these suggestions when you utilize marketing automation, and you’ll be thanking yourself as you seamlessly make new connections.
Create Corresponding Content
To tie everything all together, you’ve got to have content, content, content! In our eyes, creating corresponding content is the best part of the networking process-–and guess what, marketing automation makes this process even smoother! Social media content can be drafted and scheduled to be published on selected days and times using social media management features within your marketing automation platform.
Other than social media, we recommend creating a landing page that centralizes the event and shares contextual information about the value your business provides. In addition, we also recommend creating corresponding blog content that focuses on relevant topics, framed around your services that are relevant to the event.
We get it, you might be thinking of the time all of this will take. Here’s the good part—marketing automation tools do it all for you quickly and seamlessly! Remember, your content is a conversation and supplements your communication effectively. Also, this content can act as a form of communication, where links to your calendar can be shared.
We can’t stress enough how important automating content is to reaching your networking goal – it adds the cherry on top of it all!
Our Marketing Automation Services in Action
Now that you’ve gotten a grasp on how marketing automation tools can save you so much time and effort in your networking efforts, it’s time to take action! We’ve used our expertise to implement marketing automation tools for many clients across various industries, including healthcare.
Leveraging your marketing automation tools provides you with a breath of fresh air—you can automate all of the tedious and time-sensitive tasks and make the most of your networking efforts. We want you to show up, prepared, organized, and ready to present the best version of yourself, enhancing your personal brand. We’re sure you want the same thing as well!
Take a look at our marketing automation services and let us give you the best gift of all—your time. Ready to optimize your workflows and networking efforts? Contact us to get started!
